Lets Do The Timewarp... DAMMIT!

Approximately 12 hours after the monthly update to Asheron's Call, the servers were taken down due to a bug in said update. It wasn't until perhaps six hours after the servers came up that players were warned that the world was unstable and they should be careful. Thanks for the warning! But the worst was yet to come...

Approximately 12 hours after the monthly update to Asheron's Call, the servers were taken down due to a bug in said update. It wasn't until perhaps six hours after the servers came up that players were warned that the world was unstable and they should be careful. Thanks for the warning! But the worst was yet to come...

A bug in the October event resulted in a number of servers crashing over the course of the day on Tuesday, October 10. The result of these crashes was extreme lag in the worlds, characters getting dropped, and in some instances, when the dropped characters re-entered the world, they found themselves reverted back in time and without critical items that should not have been lost.

We have been able to isolate the bug and have taken down the worlds to fix this problem. As a result of many people losing items due to this bug, we will also be reverting our character database to the point it was at Tuesday morning when the October event went live. We apologize to those who will lose items and experience points they gained today as a result.

We anticipate turning the worlds back on by 6 A.M. Pacific, Wednesday morning. Again, we apologize for the inconvenience and downtime.

This is what we call a lack of communication. It should be pretty obvious within the first hour of a bugged game coming back up that there is a problem, but even if it takes longer you should not let hours go by warning your players!

I spent several hours running around gathering all the new items in game to surprise my wife who also plays the game but works during the day. I couldn't wait for her to get home and logon and find herself in new attire with a Jack O'Lantern in her hand. Oh well, I guess I just imagined all of it as it seems to have never happened. Yes it is just a stupid game and yes I arguably had fun getting these items, but of course now I have to go through the drudgery of repeating the steps I already took to get them again. Won't take long but how annoying and how very disappointing that my plans got blown to hell because a timely warning wasn't posted.

Maybe I'm overreacting but a good chunk of my day was wasted because someone didn't do their job. However, the loss of time isn't the only issue here.

People argue whether virtual items are real or not. Well I'd say they are if you attach meaning to them. When servers are rolled back and items are lost to the timewarp, it can be very stressful for players. There is no excuse for not warning your players the instant the possibility of such a problem is discovered.

Considering this is Microsoft we're talking about, I guess it isn't a bug, its a feature! Whatever.

After today's events, I'm starting to get the bug to pick up some dice and gather some non-virtual friends around an actual table and do some old-fashioned gaming.

Heh. A few hours of the AC equivalent of 'shard warp' and players are already up in arms. Obviously they never played EQ or Ultima Online, where stuff like this happens pretty much all the time. Though what really bugs me is that ranter dear here seems to think his [deleted] jack o' lantern is more important than the, um, 'critical' items other players lost - 'specially since he's the one making the point about attaching value to virtual items. How'd you like to log in one day and find your wand of blackfire gone 'cause of some stupid bug? Not fun? Good. Now, imagine it's not your wand of blackfire, but one of your online buddies'. Still not fun? Mmkay. And now it's the wand of some other player you don't know. If your answer included 'I don't really care' or 'hey, wait, this _is_ fun, right?', seek professional help.

People lose five hours of ph4t l3wt or so due to a timewarp. So? Big deal. Compare to all the time you spent on the game so far. Lack of communication? Be glad you got told why things happened as they did _at all_.

Anyway, getting worked up about someone getting worked up over something not worth getting worked up about is silly, so I'll quit babbling - that tabletop gaming thing actually seems like a good idea..

I've played all 3 games and no I don't think my lost items are more important than someone else's. I'm just talking about my personal experience. Yes I'm glad they told us what the problem was after the fact but it isn't really good enough communication for paying customers, this isn't a free MUD after all, it is a business and should be run professionally. But yeah tabletop gaming is looking good again. Not that I think I'll be able to shake my online addiction. ;)

Addiction, definitely. Amazing how much you - or I, anyway - put up with once your friendly game-crack dealer has got you hooked. Devious, devious MMOGs designed to make you burn time like a dotcom burns venture capital, all in the name of good fun. Only way to get anywhere is to spend time getting, um, somewhere, and once you're there, to spend more time getting somewhere higher - each step rewarding you with just enough of that warm, fuzzy feeling to try and make the next, just to see if the next milestone's going to be more satisfying. Grr. Ow, how an hesitant apology can turn into a rant against MMOG crack. It's late. I'm sorry. Sleep now. Zzz.

Let me put it this way: On Everquest, if there's a problem with a patch, they tell you there isn't one. If you lose something as a result, TOUGH! If you lose abilities as a result, TOUGH!

AC did the right thing - from what I got from other places, there were people that lost many items and entire characters in the patch. They rolled things back so that these people ended up not getting screwed over and losing everything they had. Yeah, they could have said something earlier. Yeah, there might have been a better way to do it. But hell, at least they DID something. And apologized.

(Full Disclaimer: I don't play AC. I just read about it at www.lumthemad.net out of sheer bloody-mindedness.)

Heh. A few hours of the AC equivalent of 'shard warp' and players are already up in arms. Obviously they never played EQ or Ultima Online, where stuff like this happens pretty much all the time. Though what really bugs me is that ranter dear here seems to think his [deleted] jack o' lantern is more important than the, um, 'critical' items other players lost - 'specially since he's the one making the point about attaching value to virtual items. How'd you like to log in one day and find your wand of blackfire gone 'cause of some stupid bug? Not fun? Good. Now, imagine it's not your wand of blackfire, but one of your online buddies'. Still not fun? Mmkay. And now it's the wand of some other player you don't know. If your answer included 'I don't really care' or 'hey, wait, this _is_ fun, right?', seek professional help.

People lose five hours of ph4t l3wt or so due to a timewarp. So? Big deal. Compare to all the time you spent on the game so far. Lack of communication? Be glad you got told why things happened as they did _at all_.

Anyway, getting worked up about someone getting worked up over something not worth getting worked up about is silly, so I'll quit babbling - that tabletop gaming thing actually seems like a good idea..